1. Field of the Invention
The present general inventive concept relates to an image forming apparatus and a method thereof, and more particularly, to an image forming apparatus and a method thereof which are capable of integrating a number of documents stored in files into one document and printing the integrated document in a plurality of copies.
2. Description of the Related Art
A printing apparatus operates to form and print an image on paper. Often such a printing apparatus will print a document transmitted from a computer. Newer printing apparatuses are often equipped with a hard disk drive (HDD) incorporated therein, so that it can provide function of storing documents, enabling users to select and print a desired document from the stored documents.
When printing one or more documents stored in an HDD of a printing apparatus, a user operates an operational panel (OPE) provided in the printing apparatus to select a document the user wishes to print, and then to request printing of the selected document. Then, the printing apparatus converts the selected document into printable data and performs the actual printing of the printable data.
When using a printing apparatus, the user may want to print out a complex document which consists of several documents of the HDD. For example, to print out two copies of the complex document which consists of a first and a second documents stored in the HDD, the user first operates an operational panel (OPE) to select the first and the second documents. Then, the user must set the number of copies to be printed for the first and the second documents, and request printing of the documents. Accordingly, with the two copies of the respective documents, the user manually makes two copies of the complex document, each copy consisting of the first and the second documents.
For example, if ten copies of the complex document are required and the complex document consists of ‘A’, ‘B’ and ‘C’ documents among the documents ‘A’ to ‘E’ of the HDD, the user operates an operational panel to request printing of ten copies of the ‘A’ document, printing of ten copies of the ‘B’ document, and printing of ten copies of the ‘C’ document. When the ten copies of each of the ‘A’, ‘B’ and ‘C’ documents are prepared, the user makes ten copies of A+B+C complex document, manually.
That is, with a conventional printing apparatus, if it is desired to produce a complex document of the documents stored in an HDD, a user has to print two or more copies of each of the desired documents, and make the complex document by hand, which is quite troublesome and time-consuming.